


Broken Trust

by wintersnight



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Gen, based on a tumblr ask, hard to read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersnight/pseuds/wintersnight
Summary: Anon Asked: "This is really kind of angsty, but I just keep imagining a teenage Tim telling Dick all he shit that has happened with his family and how it’s effected him. He just looks up at Dick through tears (bc his life has been so hard) and he says “good thing you’ll never leave me, right?” And then after everything happens and when he has the gun to his head, that’s what he’s thinking about. How he truly believed Dick would never do that but he was just a stupid kid for thinking that. Okay i’ll go now."This has been on Tumblr for a while and it just kind of ripped the heart out of me a bit, so I didn't know if I should bring it here or not. For those of you not familiar with No Home for Dead Birds or Fracture, I write a scene in which Tim literally has a gun to his head, so trigger warnings.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 257





	1. Chapter 1

At one time, his colors had been red, gold, and green.

At one time, he’d been part of something _bigger_ , something _important_. A legacy.

At one time, he’d been able to fly without being afraid of falling.

Being Robin had been the epitome. Even with all the terrible things he’d endured, all the injuries, all the catastrophes, all the insane megalomaniacal baddies breathing down his neck, he wouldn’t have traded the tunic for anything in the world.

( _Dick had known it, had known how painful it was for Tim give it up once his Dad found out.)_

He would have died with the _R_ on his chest and never had a single regret.

Realistically, he couldn’t have been Robin forever, and he’d known that someday he would have to give it up and either move on with his life as a regular person, or take on another name, another _mask_ , to keep fighting the good fight.

He hadn’t expected Dick would take it without a _thank-you_ or _fuck you_ to mark the end. That hadn’t been in the plan.

But it’s _fine_ because Dick was the first and Robin had been his anyway, right?

Right.

_Wrong_.

Staring down the .45 in hand, the gun his father hadn’t had the chance to use to save his own life, Tim Drake wonders how it all came down to this.

( _Last one left standing. Of fucking course_.)

How it had all come out so badly, how he could barely step foot back in Gotham, how he had to avoid the Manor, the Carriage House, his own family home. How he couldn’t pick up the phone or answer texts coming from his former team. How he could barely keep himself the _fuck together_ now that Bruce was back. How his hands would start to shake when the Manor phone number popped up ( _Alfred_ ). How his mind’s eye would go back to Dick at the Big Computer in the Batsuit, telling him they were still _equals_. How he would imagine what would happen if he hadn’t caught himself when that zip line was cut. How he would sit in his safe house, off the Bat radar, and mourn the times when he was actually–

( _happy_ )

–part of a family.

The pictures from an old Vans shoebox, the ones he’d taken back when he’d had the run of Gotham, following Batman and Robin ( _Jason_ ), are burning in the kitchen sink. He watches Nightwing’s blurry face melt away and pretends there aren’t tears in his eyes.

The old memorabilia from Haley’s Circus is in a storage unit outside the city, along with a box that has his last Robin suit.

The lawyer has strict instructions to deliver the key and a letter to his former adopted father, Bruce Wayne, upon news of his death so anything incriminating can be properly disposed.

( _They wouldn’t need any of it anyway. They could just shred all of it and wash their hands of him. The Robin that never should have been._ )

A map with all his safe houses would be send to Conner Kent, along with a letter of apology.

His favorite nerd shirts would go to Ives.

The sundries in his Perch would be for Steph, and the penthouse itself would go to Babs in case things in the theatre went sideways.

Bart would get a zip drive with all their old shenanigans on video, the only copies left once his systems uploaded relevant data to Titan’s Tower and his electronic footprint would be–

_gone_.

The box with the Red Robin costume he wore was already sealed and addressed to Jason Todd. The note on top was short and sweet: _You were right. It never should have been me after all._

He’d already arranged for his share in Wayne Enterprises to be returned to Bruce Wayne immediately, handing him his family’s company back without any strings attached.

Months ago, he’d returned The Red Bird to the Cave when he was sure no one would be around to catch him. The implication that Robin would need the car one day right there in the fact he’d brought it back because honestly, it was never really _his_ in the first place.

Alfred would get his pick of antiques from Drake Manor, and the house itself would be given to the city to be used as a halfway home for runaway teens. He’d made sure the funding would be there to run it for a few years. The donation was made in his mother’s name.

The hilt molds to his palm, the barrel glinting bright in the night. To his credit, his hands aren’t shaky when he slides the clip home and pulls the slide back to put one in the chamber.

( _The team had been working fine without him for a while now. Even if they did need someone, there was another Robin to join the roster and keep them moving forward._ )

An abrupt light in the darkness, his phone screen lighting up with a missed call notification.

_Missed call: Dick the OG_

Ironic since the last time he’d come this far, it had been him calling out to the last person he thought could pull him back.

( _Not this time. He has a new little brother, a new Robin._ )

Slowly, without putting down the .45, he presses the _ignore_ when the phone starts buzzing against with another incoming call. He thumbs the button on the side to turn the phone completely off without listening to the voicemail.

The clip makes a difference, but the absurdity of it, of the last time he did this, was when his future self was a murdering, gun-toting Batman, and the only way he could see to stop it was to stop himself.

The press of the barrel is familiar, and not in that _soothing_ kind of way.

He blinks, just _blinks_ , and his face is wet, which is really stupid because no one is going to miss him any damn way.

His chest gets tight when he fingers the trigger guard, giving himself the time he needs to do it _right_. In the final moments, he inanely thinks about the time he was huddled against Dick, right after he’d almost tried cloning his dead best friends in an insane attempt to bring them back. It’s really the last time he remembers being _held_ , being warm, feeling like he still fucking _mattered_. It was Dick holding him tight with restraining, breathing against the top of his head, fingers buried in his hair.

It’s when he could be weak while still in the mask, babbling to Dick about how he can’t do this, he can’t _lose_ them all. He was crying then, too, when he told Dick about his mom and dad leaving, leaving, always fucking _leaving_. About how he got used to seeing their backs more than their faces. How he was left standing on his own for too damn _long_ to just let it keep happening. He couldn’t keep losing them, couldn’t keep seeing people walk away, how it fucking _breaks him_.

And in the here and now, his chest hitches, eyes fluttering, hand tightening _down_ because he’d said…and Dick had…

_“But_ **_I’m_ ** _here, Timmy. I’m always going to be your big brother!”_

It had been the last time he’d been surrounded by the famed _octopus hold_.

( _It was the last time for a lot of things._ )

_He laughed, smothered in Dick shoulder, something further away from a sob. “Then I guess you’ll at least never leave me, right?”_

_“You will never be able to get rid of me. C'mon. We’re going the hell home and having a movie day. Screw the Lazarus Pit, Robin. It’s time for some R and R.”_

_Dick had half-carried him to the waiting Batplane and talked him down out of trying to use the Pit for his own gain ever again._

The first knuckle rests on the smooth curve, a six-pound trigger.

( _In the end, they all leave._ )

( _Not again_.)

Conner’s terrible mohawk and leather jacket.

Bart racing Wally at a hotdog eating competition.

Cassie running full tilt to throw herself at him when he’d come to Titan’s Tower to ask them for help when Ra’s was going to kill everyone Batman ever loved.

Raven nuzzling Gar out of plain sight so no one would think she was totally _gone_ for him.

Jason coming to the Tower, _alive good God_ , and the Robin he used to be super-imposed to be his hero and enemy in the same ghostly figure.

Bruce putting a hand on his shoulder on a ride back to the Cave, chasing the dawn, the _Good work, tonight_ tired but sincere, and his whole body lights up.

His mother looking at peace in her coffin, a lily in her folded hands.

His eyes close on the out-of-the-way safe house, the plain beige walls, stripped and soulless. He keeps the team in his mind, the times he was _happy_.

_Now_.

Instead of a resounding _boom_ followed by his grey matter splattering his personality, intelligence, imagination, _him_ all over–

the wall to the safe house caves in under a _super punch_.

Conner is white as a sheet on the other side, brick and mortar crumbling under his hands. “ ** _No!_** Tim. **_Tim_.** Put. The. Gun. Down.”

His mouth is dry and his brain pan full of nothing but _pain_ and _disappointment._

( _But you brought it all on yourself, didn’t you? The Robin nobody wanted. The son nobody_ ** _asked_** _for._ )

He isn’t numb enough to be calm, cool, and collected. “All…all you have to do–” a hitch in his breathing “–is walk away.”

The meta floats in a little closer, hovering over the flooring instead of outside. His hands stretch out, gaze focused and intense.

“Can’t do that, buddy. Looks like I should have been more of an asshole after all the League of Assassins shenanigans. Sorry, my bad.”

Kon knows he’s in trouble when Tim Drake doesn’t laugh.

“Tim,” he goes to serious in about two point five seconds because the hand holding that shiny automatic tightens enough for him to hear the screws in the hilt strain, “ _Tim_. It’s _me_ here, okay? It’s just you and me, just like it’s always been. We’re besties, whether you’re Robin or Red Robin or Tim fucking Drake because _that guy_ is so damn cool.” He inches closer, wondering if he’s fast enough, wondering if he can really get to Tim in _time_ –

Like the former Robin can read his mind, those violet-blue eye give him a blink.

“I’ve always wondered if you really are faster than a speeding bullet.”

“ _No!_ ”

(…as it turns out, he isn’t.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monitor beeps steadily, the only comforting thing in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got so many nice comments on Tumblr from the last part, so I decided to do a follow-up.

Raven and Gar stand behind Cassie when they firmly tell the Batfamily _no_ , none of them can come to the Tower right now.

Nightwing and the Red Hood exchange a _look_ while B is the usual silent and stoic, the darkness of the Cave behind them.

“Wonder Girl,” N hold up placating hands palms up, noticing the way Gar doesn’t look directly at the camera, and Rave is almost completely hidden by her cloak. He gets the impression of things _not good_. “We only heard Red Robin is in critical condition! Can you tell us anything about what happened if at least _one_ of us can’t come see him?”

The family of detectives can pick out all the _tells_.

“My hands are tied until he wakes up,” the de-facto leader of the Titans goes with, as diplomatically as possible, “right now he’s being monitored twenty-four seven while he’s comatose–”

_Because Kon and Bart won’t leave him alone for a second._

“–and we’re taking care of him–”

_As we have been since he finally called out to us for the fun time against the League of Assassins in Gotham_.

“–I’ll keep you updated with the latest news.”

“ _Comatose?_ ” All three Bats on the screen echo with different pitches to their voices.

The sigh coming out of her is just on the edge of her _patience_.

“ _How?”_ Dick chokes out, “what the hell happened to him?”

Cassie just stares back, lips pursed.

“That ain’t good ‘nough, y’ feel me here?” The Red Hood’s helmet is turned toward the screen, arms crossed over his chest, “Baby Bird’s a _Bat_ first n’ foremost–”

“Not in the last few years,” Cassie counters gently, firmly, “and the last instructions he gave us? Back when there were assassins all over your city? It was to keep the Bats out of his business. I’m only calling because–”

The Batman holds up a hand, “Wonder Girl, I’m grateful you did. _But_. I’m still Tim’s mentor and the only legal family he has. I’m _asking you_ , please at _least_ let me in the Tower to see him.”

“Batman,” and she massages the bridge of her nose, “I can’t. Not until he wakes up and tells me what he _wants_. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

She looks at the screen again, “please don’t try to force this. Gar’s family still owns Titans Tower, and I will authorize the security system to activate if you try anything. If–” her breath hitches, “ _when_ Tim wakes up, I’ll let you know.”

Gar finally seems to be able to move, stepping around Cassie to grin half-heartedly down at the camera. “You heard it from here. We’ll keep in touch. Tower, outtie.” And flips the button to cut the feed.

**

The monitor beeps steadily, the only comforting thing in the room.

Kon doesn’t need the soft noise to assure himself Tim is still alive.

He can hear it through _his_ Robin’s chest.

For the last seventy-odd hours, he’s been sitting, laying, floating right in this spot next to the medical bed where his best friend is stretched out, comatose. He’s only takes short breaks to run to the bathroom.

The team keeps close tabs on them, bringing him food, someone always trying to stop by and stick around to keep him company.

( _He knows what they’re trying to do_.)

Food makes appearances and things get tucked away in the niches of the room. Tablets, books, a half-done knitting project, old school Playstation hooked up to the television, origami cranes all over the place.

The team is worried about both of them, and Kon still hadn’t told everyone what really happened out there, how he came to be flying madly in the Tower, sobbing while he carried Tim’s body, limp and still, blood everywhere. They’re worried because Kon’s been exhibiting signs of shock, white as a ghost, and quietly crying while Raven, BB, Cassie, and Miguel sprinted into action, getting their former Robin into the medical bay and working fast to try saving his life.

Kid Flash had watched from behind his working teammates, holding Kon tightly in both arms to keep the super on his feet, eyes wide when he catches glimpses of Tim’s slack, white face, blood on the pillow, on gloved hands, making everything more red than the old Robin tunic.

Since then, Kon’s been a wreck, unable to talk about it without breaking down, his immeasurable strength utterly useless in the face of whatever had happened to Tim.

( _Raven and Gar went into the Safe Room of the Tower to talk it out, wondering if Luthor had some tech still hidden in their Superboy, if it was just like the time he’d broken Tim’s arm–_ )

So, the Titans absolutely close ranks, stay on edge, monitoring, waiting, watching, trying to be there for their teammate, trying to console him when Kon admitted he couldn’t stop Tim in time, he couldn’t stop him, didn’t know what he was going to do until it was too fucking _late_ –

It’s enough to put the pieces together without forcing Superboy to come out and say it directly, keeping the pressure in the room for if… _when_ Tim finally woke up.

New Protocols start appearing in the database the very next hour.

**

When he comes to, his mouth is so _dry_ and his head is killing him.

_Seriously._

The familiar room in the Tower’s Med Bay is soothing at least, not like he wants to be caught by the Joker right now or anything because that? Would not be conducive to _Good Morning, Robin_.

His senses gradually come back online, and turning his head on the pillow is just short of _agonizing_.

Conner Kent, Superboy, is sitting by the bed, head in his hands, shoulders shaking gently and Tim Drake’s eyes go wide, all the pain in his head forgotten when he sees _his_ Superboy look up with red, watery eyes.

Tim shoots up in bed, can’t look away, can’t focus on the pain rolling down his spine with the movement.

“Kon?” Is a whisper, a broken sound, “Kon is it really _you?_ ”

Because _fuck_ , he’s going to cry too, isn’t he?

( _Oh yeah. Yeah, he is_.)

“Tim! Oh my _God_ , you’re awake! Tim, you’re awake!” The super barely has enough time to get to his feet before Tim Drake launches himself out of the medical bed, wires and IVs be _damned_ , hurling himself straight at the red S shield against the black t-shirt.

Just like he expects, Conner Kent, Kon-El, Superboy, his best fucking _friend_ –

–catches him.

Kon’s knees give out and they’re on the floor, sobbing against each other, Tim’s arms tight around him, holding on like he thought Kon would disappear the second he let him go, and all Tim is saying sounds vaguely like, “you’re alive, you’re _alive_! How the _hell_ are you alive?!” where his face is buried in the side of Kon’s throat.

The camera are apparently working just _fine_ because KF is in that room in the two seconds it took for Tim to launch himself out of bed and send the two sprawling all over the floor, ripped out wires all over them.

The speedster, his own eyes _wet_ with relief, is gentle when he kneels next to them, when he touches Kon’s shoulder and lays a hand softly to the center of Tim’s back.

Bart’s mouth opens, ready to say something smarmy to cover up the emotions, something like, “ _hey, hey. Almost dead guys have to be in bed,_ ” when Tim’s watery eyes are looking up at him and his expression is utterly fucking _broken_.

“Bart?” Cracks in Tim’s hitching chest, his eyes wide and wet and spilling over, and hands shaking but moving so _fast_ to reach out and grip Bart’s shoulder. “Bart, you…Oh my _God_ , you too! You’re back? You’re _alive!_ You’re both _alive_.”

He has every _intention_ of leaping up to throw both arms around Kid Flash as well, to bring him down and hold on to both of them _forever_ , but when he tries to stand this time, his legs won’t hold his weight.

It’s only because the two of them are so _super_ that he doesn’t go falling back down to the ground, both muscling a shoulder under his arms, sliding free hands around his waist. This time it’s Tim’s shoulders shaking while he bites down on his lower lip hard and tries to stop his eyes from spilling the fuck over, tries to keep the sobs trapped in the center of his chest where it won’t come out.

( _Because he’s Robin, and that shit doesn’t happen_ …

_And yet, here we are_.)

He totally _fails_ , and now they’re never going to let him live it _down_.

Bart darts across the room, viciously slams the intercom and yells for everyone to get to the Med Bay because their bird is _awake_ , and _someone_ needs to come down and put his damn IVs back in!

Then he’s hot-footing it back across the room, sliding on his knees to be right on Tim’s empty side, squirreling both arms under Tim’s since Kon’s is around his shoulders.

“I can’t believe it,” Tim sobs against the side of Kon’s face, wrapped in _both_ of them. “I can’t…I _can’t_ –”

“Tim, my _bro_ ,” Bart frees a hand to wipe across his eyes, “that’s _our_ line. For fuck’s sake, you’ve been a coma for _days_. Do you have _any_ idea how worried everyone is? Cassie is might literally punch you hard enough to break your head open _again_.”

“After you’re okay,” Kon’s voice is muffled and watery against his shoulder.

“After you’re okay,” Bart parrots back, “you asshole, you stupid, _stupid_ asshole.”

“Asshole,” Kon chokes out, “how could you be so fucking _stupid?_ Why didn’t you call me? Why…why didn’t–”

“You were _dead_. Both of you were _dead_ , Kon. How could I have–”

And it’s a _whoa_ moment right there.

Something very _not_ crash.

“Tim what are you _talking_ about? We’ve been back almost–”

With a terrible feeling in his gut, Kon cuts right in, “what’s the last thing you remember?”

With wide eyes, the super grabs both of Tim’s shoulders, “ _Tim_. What the last thing you remember?”

“I…I moved to Blüdhaven. Because Steph. Steph…and you and _you_ right after my _dad_ ,” He falters, pulling back, being _Robin_ , trying to keep it the hell _together_.

(But he was literally the only one left _standing_. Just him and Dick and B, but that still didn’t make it _better_ , didn’t make the pain go away, didn’t fill the void, didn’t bring them _back_.)

“What?” Kon mumbles, _numb_ , not realizing his grip has gotten tighter and _tighter_ until Tim flinches in his hold and Bart is pushing the center of his chest.

It takes a _minute_. A very long minute for him to breathe because Kon has _such_ a bad feeling about where this might be going.

It takes Bart just a few more seconds than Kon. “Tim, Stephanie Brown isn’t dead. She’s alive.”

“Wh-what?” And even if his head is starting to hurt again, even if the nausea is building, he can push it all away with that sentence, with someone else he loved apparently _alive_. “She’s–she’s _what now?_ ”

Bart and Kon are looking at him intently from both sides, noticing how his expression crumbles, his shoulders slumping in shock, his eyes are blown wide, and he’s pulling back from them both, looking pale and unsteady.

Unconsciously, they tighten their grips around him, ready to catch, ready to hold him up, ready to be what he needed.

( _It’s time to stop running_.)

When Cassie slides almost past the door to the Med Bay, beating Gar literally by a _hair_ , the small leopard gets with the program and leaps over her shoulder effortlessly transforming so they come to the three _idiots_ on the floor.

“What the _hell_ are you doing? Why isn’t Tim in _bed?_ ”

“Totes pulled out your IVs, man,” Gar tisks at him, the trembly kind of relieved to see one of his besties, a good teammate, a good leader, look up at him again instead of unmoving and unnaturally still. “Rave’s gonna get _moody_ , right? No one wants to see that.”

He and Cassie are gentle, keeping in mind he’s the only one on the team that could get _this_ fucked up and not _die_ , while they get him back to bed.

Their resident supernatural specialist and part-time nurse comes in more serenely than her teammates, eyes warm when she spots Tim’s dazed eyes just _watching_ them reinsert his IV and put patches back on his chest, a tube under his nose.

Looking up at Cassie, sees her _I’m relieved you aren’t dead_ expression and just smiles dopily up at her ( _he can’t help a flash of_ awkward _because, well, he’d kissed his best friend’s girl – they thought he’d been dead at the time, but…wait, does it still count?_ ). His brain is fuzzy with the crazy emotional rollercoaster since he’d woken up and see his best friends _alive_ , is still reeling a little bit from _Steph_. It makes him literally _itch_ to get back to Gotham even if he’s sinking further down into the softer-than-it-should-feel medical bed with most the team scrambling around them.

He glances up when he catches Raven injecting something in his IV, smiles at her too.

But, it’s _fine_. He’s going to stay long enough to let them take care of him because he doesn’t have to go back to Blüdhaven and that shitty hovel he’d been holding up in after things went so, _so_ wrong. Bruce had taken them training, had worked with Dick to bring Tim back from a terrible _edge_.

The three of them were working better together, and he’s staying at the Manor instead of his…his parent’s house or the Carriage House where he’d passed the heck right _out_ more than once in his tenure as Robin.

Things are finally _better_.

And now? Now that he’s got Conner and Bart back, now that he can head back to Gotham and Steph…his Steph will be _alive_ –

He’ll have cases to work and school to eventually go back to, or at least the GED test to take. He’ll have Gotham, dirty and dingy, corrupt and cold and cruel while being a beacon to the best and brightest and the dreamers and the innocent. He’ll have the Cave and his room down the hall from Bruce. He’ll sign the paperwork to change his last name–

( _Drake-Wayne, who would have thought?_ )

–and try to make friends with Damian, _again_.

When it gets too much, he can come back to the New Teen Titans, and work it out with his _team_.

Life? Life is finally going his way.

(And if he doesn’t remember anything from before clearly enough to explain how he got hurt, well, that’ll wait until he wakes _up_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Tim’s memory is stuck on the One Year Later arc where after Tim, Bruce, and Dick went on some kind of training journey and afterwards, he comes back to reform the New Teen Titans, Cass is in the wind, probably not even Black Bat yet, and he’s sporting a red and black suit. It’s after he tried to clone Bart and Kon? I’m a little fuzzy on how the events fall, so I’m pretty much making it up as I go along :D


End file.
